Friday, April 29, 2016

Asian mint sauce

Remember mint sauce? I wouldn't be surprised if you don't. I'd all but forgotten about it myself, until last week when the Mr brought home half a slow-cooked lamb shoulder as a souvenir from a night out.

While I was reheating it for dinner the next evening, watching fat pooling in the roasting dish and feeling too tired to make hummus, I remembered the ultimate in traditional accompaniments. Five minutes later...

Easy Mint Sauce For Roast Lamb

Asian Mint Sauce
Let's be clear, this is a mint sauce with vaguely Asian ingredients, not a sauce of Asian mint (though I'm sure that would be nice, and if you have some growing, adding it would be a good experiment).

2 Tbsp grated palm sugar, or brown sugar
1/2 cup rice vinegar
a good pinch of flaky sea salt
about 40 fresh mint leaves, shredded

Put the sugar, vinegar and salt in a small pot. Bring it to the boil, stirring to dissolve the sugar and salt. Remove from the heat and add the mint. Stir and leave to cool, then transfer to a lidded glass jar. Store in the fridge and use liberally on appropriated roast lamb, among other things.

Given the weirdness of our weather - nearly May and it's still t-shirt weather in most parts of New Zealand, while it's sleeting in the northern hemisphere - it seems this fits the bill for Lavender and Lovage's Cooking With Herbs blogging challenge for April, which focuses on herbs for spring and Easter.
Cooking with Herbs Lavender and Lovage

5 comments:

  1. my mum always used to make mint sauce for roast lamb but I don't remember eating it - and now I don't eat lamb but have mint in the garden I sometimes wonder if it goes with anything except lamb - perhaps peas?

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    1. See Phil's comment below re roasted courgettes!

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  2. I don't seem to eat mint sauce with lamb much these days and right now I can't understand why. This sounds like a fine variation to me. Mint sauce in some form or another does work well with grilled or roasted courgettes too - or at least I think so. But what really impresses me is that it's possible to bring home bits of lamb as a souvenir from a night out. I've known people to bring home traffic cones, inedible kebabs and people they've never met before but bits of lamb are SO much better. I think life in your distant part of the world is sounding much more civilised and exciting.

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    1. Believe me, I was surprised too - it would be a great story if he'd wrestled a lamb to the ground, wrenched off a shoulder and roasted it over a nearby fire, but the real version is a bit more prosaic. Sigh. It did make a good dinner though.

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